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Actor Shailene Woodley joins Sam to talk about a pivotal decision she made to move to Europe and live out of a carry-on suitcase for ten years amid a blossoming Hollywood career. Shailene tells Sam that she would pick up dishwashing shifts when she needed money and how living in Europe taught her to see how Americans and Europeans talk about sex and bodies differently. Plus they talk about needing to make decisions even when you’re terrified by them, being a climate activist despite not loving the title, and exchange a few stories about the weird things their cats (and all cats??) do.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Samantha Bee, Shailene Woodley

Samantha Bee  00:02

If this is the weekly, daily or hourly reminder you need to make sure you’re registered and planning to vote, then please allow me register and make a plan to vote. Why? I don’t know, because I said so. Need another reason, or, okay, how about today? I say because of the environment, I shouldn’t have to still explain to people that it’s important that we care, that our planet remains, you know, somewhat habitable for us and our children and generations to come. Our planet shouldn’t have to be the this is fine meme every damn day. So I have some serious choice words for the people who think climate change isn’t real, who don’t care that we just had a hotter summer than the year before, and we could probably expect that next summer will be even worse, or maybe this summer will just never end, and next summer will just be summer 2024 2.0 my god. So allow me to remind you that while in office, Donald Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protection rules. He also pulled the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. And you bet project 2025 has something to say about what the environmental protection agency should be focusing on, or rather, if it should even exist, it is simply makes me burn up with rage, unlike the planet, which is burning with fossil fuels.

 

Shailene Woodley  02:49

This is Choice Words, I’m Samantha Bee, my guest today is actor Shailene Woodley, who you know and love from Big Little Lies, The Fault in Our Stars, The Descendants, if you’re my kids, The Divergent series and the forthcoming three women. She’s also a climate activist, even though she doesn’t necessarily love that title, and we talk a lot about how we can all make easy choices to better the planet. So take a listen and make good choices. Oh my God, it is. I’m so excited that you said yes to doing this podcast. I can’t even tell you.

 

Shailene Woodley  03:32

Yes, I’m so excited to talk.

 

03:34

Oh God, we met just like for people who were listeners of the podcast. We met just a couple of months ago, really, at an event at a beautiful gal a conservation oh, you’re like, deep in the environmental movement, and we were going to talk about that. But you go all over the world on grand adventures, doing athletic things and diving into waters and doing all of this, like.

 

Shailene Woodley  04:02

Athletic things, I guess it’s true.

 

04:04

Oh, it’s true. Meeting people all over the world, saving the world, I like to talk about the choices that people make in life, and I feel like you are the exact person that I want to talk to. Because when I read articles about you, interviews with you, or I see them, you’re incredibly thoughtful about the choices that you make, the path that you take. You’re so open and really vulnerable, and I think it’s really cool. So what is it like for you to make a choice in life, like a big one. Are you good at you embrace that? Are you like, Oh, let me get into it. Are you terrified?

 

Shailene Woodley  04:50

No, I mean, I’m always terrified, which is why I do it.

 

Samantha Bee  04:56

Okay.

 

Shailene Woodley  04:57

I think choice is actually the. The greatest freedom we have on this planet as humans. It’s kind of the only thing we have, in some ways, because we live in these like structures and these systems and these institutions and and choice is really the the compass that allows us to navigate a life that can be a life well lived, or a life well, right? Juice, you know, and, and for better, for worse, I’ve always had this sort of insatiable quality that I just I want to know everything about the human experience. I want to like, taste it and smell it and feel it and live it, cry about it and grieve about it and be angry about it and be joyful about it, and choice has been that the opportunity for me to understand what all of those qualities can look like and feel like. And I guess I am terrified of big choices, but I always make them.

 

05:52

It’s funny that you said the word juiced, because actually, when I think about you, I think you are the type of person who gets all the juice out of the orange, you’re like.

 

Shailene Woodley  06:06

Oh, God, I do. And let me tell you, Sam, sometimes it’s meaningful to get all the juice out of it.

 

06:13

Yes, sometimes you’re left with a dry husk, and you just go, I’ll compost it and I’ll make something good with it.

 

Shailene Woodley  06:21

Exactly.

 

Samantha Bee  06:22

Right?

 

Shailene Woodley  06:23

Smelling good because it’s such.

 

06:25

At least,it’s fragrant. It’s beautifully fragrant and cleansing. How do you make How do you deliberate, like, if you have to, if you’re faced with a big, like, a big career decision, or something like that, how do you attack it? Do you just let it sink into your bones for a little while? Do you deliberate, or do you just dive in? Do you like, strap on a single fin and, like, dive to the bottom of the ocean?

 

Shailene Woodley  06:48

Sometimes it’s an instant yes, and then what it is, I fight, yeah, I fight, and I do everything I can to protect that instant Yes, because I feel like that’s such a rare treasure when there is that individual sort of butterfly explosion in the bodies, and then the cells and every part of me, I can’t sleep, I can’t do anything, because I’m obsessed with the instant yes. And then when it’s not an instant yes, instead of reminding myself, oh, this is probably a no, because I’m not getting all of those feelings okay? And I deliberate, and I freak out, and I call I really, I really lean on my people. I’m very lucky to have a tight group of people that I trust implicitly. So I’ll lean on them, and I’ll kind of pick their brains a little bit, and then I try to give it as much time as I can, and now I’m in a new phase of life where I really value my peace and I value my center. If there’s a decision or a choice that’s giving me anxiety. Now I try to remind myself that that’s probably a no, even if it’s sexy, you know, even if it’s enticing, even if it’s like something delicious that could come out of that choice. If there is, like, an Unwrap in me, I try to listen to that as much as I listen to the full yes.

 

08:14

You do talk about butterflies. You like, you either get butterflies or you don’t. But like, have you ever said yes to something and then you were like, hey, I can’t do it. I’m so freaking out.

 

Shailene Woodley  08:27

That’s happened to me in relationships, that’s happened to me in my career, that’s happened to me in choices I’ve made about where I want to live or how I want to live, and it’s so disruptive and it’s so unnecessary that I try to protect myself at all costs from doing that anymore, but I still do it constantly.

 

08:52

Oh, constantly. But it’s good. It’s like one of those. I often talk to people about learning how to say no to things which I feel like I learned it from reading an article about Oprah. She was like, you have to learn how to say no. Do you are you good at that?

 

Shailene Woodley  09:08

I’m really good at saying no, unless I’m unclear. Like, sometimes I find for better for worse again, like I have a really strong moral my values are very strong, and I think I’d have very high integrity. And so every now and then, if I’m in a situation that compromises my personal idea of what is right or wrong or more right correct, but there’s like that kind of artist side of me that’s a glutton for human desire experience whatever, if I’m in that situation of questioning my connection to my integrity, or my connection to my desire to juice life, I cannot know how to say no, and I it gets stuck in my throat, and it’s such an uncomfortable it’s such an awful feeling.

 

09:55

Awful, can you think, if you just the kind of looking back, is there a choice? You can think of that you made, that really impacted your life in a way that maybe you like didn’t necessarily expect, or something that had even a something, a small choice that had these big, wild reverberations.

 

Shailene Woodley  10:15

Yeah, I mean two, two massive things stand out to me. One was when I was 19, I had this film come out called the descendants, and it was I’d been acting for 13 years at that point, and it was the first time that Hollywood really came into my awareness. Because up until then, it was just like this fun thing I would do, and then I would leave and go back to the suburbs and hang with my friends and go camping and and suddenly I had studio execs and people around me being like, you need to dress more cosmopolitan. You need to do this, you need to do that. And I was like, bitch, I’m 19. I want lovers. I want to see the world. I want to like know things. I don’t want to dress cosmopolitan. What does that even mean? It was disturbing to me, and my reaction to it was to get rid of everything I owned and moved to Europe. Actually, I moved to Hawaii first, and then I moved to Europe. And for 10 years, I kind of just lived out of a carry on suitcase. And when I wasn’t working, I would meet somebody on a train or in a hostel, and I’d ask if they wanted to learn English, and in exchange, they could teach me their language, and I would do their dishes, and I just lived with strangers for almost 10 years, and it was wildly informative and and shaped so much of who I was. And I didn’t know what the time, you know, to me, it was normal. I was like, why isn’t everyone trying to do this and and I wasn’t if I didn’t have money, or if I was struggling financially, or whatever, like I would pick up a skill and I’d go out of wash dishes for a few months between things. And I think it expanded my view of not just European life or Fijian life or all these other places I lived, but it helped me understand American life in a lot of ways. So that was a big one. And then in 2016 I made a series of choices politically, and there was this movement about a pipeline on Native American reservation, and I was out there for almost a year and heavily involved with the community there and afterwards, when you said, Did I make a choice that I didn’t expect? What would happen, I suddenly became this person that everyone thought of as an activist or an environmentalist or and I was like, whoa. I’m not any of those things. I’m just like a girl who cares and happened to stumble into this situation. This wasn’t something I sought out. It was something that kind of found me, and here I am and and tomorrow I might be somewhere else, and tomorrow I might, you know, devote myself to something else. And that shook my nervous system a lot, kind of having again the world look at me in a way that I didn’t choose, but in sort of this label that was a label I didn’t identify with.

 

13:07

Isn’t that so funny that it’s so true, that I think people in the like the world writ large, is so much happier if they can just call you a thing and pigeonhole you in an exact way that makes sense, that they can order it in their brains.

 

Shailene Woodley  13:23

Yeah, and I look around and I’m like, yo, why are we all performing? I’m so tired of the performance, and I think the label is a part of that performance. It’s like, if I can understand you as this one thing, then you’re safe, because I don’t have to accept that you’re a complex, multi layered emotional being.

 

13:48

Hollywood was like, we’re going to make you this. Now you’re going to get fancy. Now we’re going to make sure, like, now we’re going to put you through the rigors of this, like Hollywood washing machine, like this, this, like spin cycle that we put young women on young actors, really. And you were like, fuck you. I’m gonna go be a dishwasher for a while. It’s a rare quality, actually, to know yourself that well at the age of 19. How do you account for that? Or just, were you like a child who was born and just knew yourself? Or did that develop over time?

 

Shailene Woodley  14:22

I think I was, I was definitely a child who knew myself. I had a pretty intense childhood. I had a lot of unusual, extreme situations that I went through as a child, outside of acting, outside of the industry, and for me, acting was sort of the only it was the in a lot of ways, I think it was the thing that sort of saved my life, like it gave me this outlet to be a free being. And so when suddenly Hollywood tried to take that away from me. It was like this fierceness in me of going, hell no. This is my thing. This is my joy. This is my craft. But I never looked at it as some like artsy fartsy thing. It was really like a lifeline that I wasn’t aware of as a lifeline until later on in life. But when that was threatened to become something else, I got angry. And it was like that rebellion in me of going like, Fuck you for trying to steal the thing that makes me feel alive. And in the way that I reacted to that was, I’m gonna go search for other things that make me feel alive.

 

15:43

That is really powerful. You’re like, this is my safe thing. This is my thing. Yeah, you can’t alter it.

 

Shailene Woodley  15:51

It was fun, like the one beautiful. I mean, my parents did a lot of beautiful things, but one of the beautiful things they did was, as a child actor, I had three rules. I had to stay the person they knew I was. I had to have do good in school, and I had to have fun. And I love that they included the fun piece of it, because it was always, and is always fun, and never became this, like agonizing. I’m an actor, I’m an artist. I have to drown in my own, you know, pain in order to survive, and it was a joyful expression, instead of something that felt agonizing.

 

16:27

Right, or like a necessary expression, or something like, because I’m thinking about what I’ve read about three women and the way that you talk, it feels like it was like a necessary for you to do, maybe a difficult and like a like difficult and raw.

 

Shailene Woodley  16:44

I’ve always been obsessed with desire, set sexuality, because it’s such a suppressed subject in our culture, and yet it’s everywhere. It’s it’s like the bacon hanging in front of the dog, but the dog never really bacon. And then living in Europe for so long and seeing how erotic Europeans are simply by existence. It’s, they don’t try. They’re just very much in their bodies, and they’re very free and they’re very it’s, it’s a different way of relating to self. I just I look at at our culture and the women in our culture, and, you know, the family that I come from and and the things that I have been through that are so corrupt and don’t need to be and so when I when I read three women, and when I met Lisa, I felt for the first time like there was an opportunity to tell a story that’s that every woman can relate to and also men, whether they choose to open their eyes to relate to it or not like these are common themes. These are not strange esoteric ideas about female psychology, and it did feel like a necessary thing to bring to the screen.

 

17:58

Isn’t that so funny when you go like, I will never forget going to, like, a European beach for the first time, yeah, in my, in my one piece bathing suit, like North America, like Canadian. Just like, so everything’s covered, yeah, just like zinc on the face, like a big calf town and are just like, in a just the bottom of a bikini, smoking, yeah, drinking wine, drinking wine. And they’re like, and their kids are like, off doing whatever. They’re like, bye. And then, and they’re having, like, this such a great normal relationship with their bodies. And then they just, like, bend over into the cooler to grab a sandwich and their asses in your face. They’re like, I don’t care. You’re like, oh, wait, I’m the problem. Like, I’m the weirdo.

 

Shailene Woodley  18:52

Right? But it’s all like we’re the weirdos, because we’re not hot how to be safe in our own bodies, because every example around us says the body is not a safe place to be. And so it’s so many mixed signals constantly, and then you add like porn and societal pressures, yes, all of the things that are around and as Americans and now with social media and technology, it really is every day, it is a you have to make a conscious decision to connect, because intimacy is unfortunately a fleeting thing. It’s it’s going.

 

Samantha Bee  22:02

We’ll be right back after this.

 

22:05

I think often about the themes that are emerging in this conversation, like just when you think back to like the career trajectory of Britney Spears is, like, a perfect example that, just like everyone was just obsessed, like, openly obsessed, with her virginity. Yeah. So they both want to portray her very sexually at a young age, but they also need to know that she’s like, sexually pure, and it was like the most. I mean, it’s psychotic.

 

Shailene Woodley  22:41

It’s like any sense it’s psychotic.

 

22:46

Yes, and that was so long ago, and I just don’t think things have changed all that much. No,

 

Shailene Woodley  22:51

They haven’t. I mean, there’s all these statistics too about young kids are having less sex and touching each other less, yes, ever before. And it’s interesting as I like, I think a lot about religion and institutions, and as they are sort of changing, I think people are are less religious, maybe now than they were in the 90s during the Britney Spears rise. And as those things are changing, there’s this new kind of counterculture, of of being, like, highly offended by everything, and the cancel culture thing and and I think young people just don’t know where to be. They don’t know like, how to find there’s no example of a center of having a connection outside of society, in a way. And so that, I think adds also to the pressures that that also exist in the sexual sphere of having to be perfect, having to look a certain way, to perform a certain way, and man, oh, man, it really breaks my heart.

 

23:53

I mean, where you can actually meet people in real life is so it’s like, vital.

 

Shailene Woodley  23:57

Yes.

 

Samantha Bee  23:59

It’s vital. And I do think that there will be, like, in subsequent generations, we’re all gonna learn these lessons, and at some point, maybe not exactly my children’s generation, but the generation after, they’re just gonna throw off the yoke of certain types of technology, I think, and just be like, I don’t use that. That’s like, even my children’s generation are a little bit like this is my brain is frozen. I’m gonna walk away. It’s very healthy. So I want to talk about three women a little bit more, because it’s such a great it’s a beautiful, vital, interesting book, and I love that this adaptation has been made. She’s also the executive producer of the show adaptation. Okay, so the character of the book is a journalist, somewhat based on her, somewhat based on Lisa. Is it what’s it like to play someone sort of who you can talk to in real life? Is that? Is it harder or better?

 

Shailene Woodley  25:02

I think if it wasn’t Lisa, it would be harder. But because, and because she and I have some kind of other worldly, cosmic connection, really felt quite easy. All of the stories, most of the stories that GIA goes through, plot wise, are realistic and truthful to Lisa’s personal history, but the person that GIA is and the way that we talked about bringing her to life, and different characteristics and mannerisms are not reflective of Lisa. And so there is, there is some truth in parallel, and then there is a lot of fiction in there, so that it felt, so GIA felt authentic, and Lisa and I, strangely have been through a few similar things in life, and so that also helped kind of shape the narrative of how GIA was going to be elicited. And I just it was, it was incredible to play Lisa, because she’s such a creature of truth for all of the the truth and the breath that she gives other people, she really allowed herself to be vulnerable with this show, and specifically with the GIA character, because it is her truth, it is her history, and that is, wow, that’s so vulnerable.

 

26:17

I think I was watching an interview with her, and she said something that I thought was so poignant, which is that women are like, allowed to talk about what they don’t want, but they’re not really allowed to talk about what they do want, and that felt really real to me, like that really resonated for me.

 

Shailene Woodley  26:43

Yeah, she’s so good at that man. She really knows how to nail the little sound like nails it. It’s so true, though, it’s so true. I, you know, I’m single at the moment, I’m very single, and my friends have been like, you know, write down the five and 10 or write down the things that you want, the qualities that are that’s manifest. Oh, and I wrote down I couldn’t like, I’m an extra person. So what was supposed to be like, a list of five qualities turned into like, a 30 page poem. And they were like, you need to, like, you know, narrow it down a little bit.

 

27:17

And it’s like, not so, not so much writing. They’re like, actually, we’re gonna amend our suggestion to you.

 

Shailene Woodley  27:24

And so now it’s just two pages, but, um, but even in that, like, I have people go, and this is such a silly anecdote, but they’re like, you can’t, you can’t have all those things. You can’t, and I’m like, what do you mean? I want those things. I can have those things. And by the way, I am those things. I am all of these things as well. And so just that’s like a a silly, very surface level example, I think of what you just said, but it’s this idea that the minute that you start dreaming of a life that is actually the life that you want to live, we’re immediately told, as women, no, you can’t have that. It’s too impossible, your ideas are too grand, or you’re asking for too much, or whatever, the negative no, is it really it pisses me off, to be honest.

 

28:20

Yeah, they’re like, actually looking over your list, you’re allowed to have seven out of the 10 things that you want. It’s just like, though.

 

Shailene Woodley  28:28

I mean, even as a mom, it’s like so many women still are told, like to work or and be a mom and be a partner and have and be an artist or be a creator, whatever you might want to do, there are all of these restrictions on how you’re supposed to do it. Instead of just going, dude, I have a skin suit on. I am alive. There are cells in my body working miracles, and I want to be this today and tomorrow, I might change my mind. But why can’t I try it? Why can’t I be that if I’m living from a place of goodness and kindness and, you know, self reflection and awareness, why can’t? Why are we limiting ourselves? It makes no sense, right to me.

 

29:11

Right, you okay, one of my favorite things, because, you know, because the book is very much about women and their relationship to sex still. You know, we’re still. We got our we got our North American hangups, but yeah, especially, I do think that that is so well illustrated in how we teach sex education in our schools. So I always ask people, you’d like to think that it isn’t still a gym teacher teaching, but it actually is, and it’s worse than ever. And now you know people are cutting their sex ed curricula, and people know nothing about their bodies. The knowledge of your body is very esoteric, and especially in American schools in the education system. What would your dream sex ed look like like if you were inventing it out of whole cloth? What would it look like? I like to dream about what is possible.

 

Shailene Woodley  30:11

I mean, I’m probably the wrong person to ask, because I’m like, you want to go there.

 

30:15

Listen, like, I mean, well, you lived in Europe for a long time. It’s totally different there. It’s like, just totally different, like reading about sex education in the Netherlands. You’re like, what you talk about pleasure?

 

Shailene Woodley  30:27

Yeah, I think the first thing would be like, here’s the anatomy of a female body, let’s talk about that first, and all the different parts of the female body, all the parts, all the parts. There’s so many parts. And then also, I think one of the things that’s the most sad to me is when I talk to women and they still think that there’s like, there’s only one type of orgasm that always kind of shocks me. And so I feel like in my dream scenario in sex ed, it would be, there’s a million different ways for your body to experience pleasure. Here’s a few so you at least have like, a starting off point to know it’s not just like a little like rub and you’re done.

 

31:12

There’s like, just like in a porno, you just stop it a few times, it’s easy.

 

Shailene Woodley  31:18

There’s a lot of different ways. And I think a huge part of the sex ed thing that I would talk about is it’s actually so easy for your body to experience pleasure if you feel safe, because that’s something that I have always run into in my life, which is being someone who has been very lucky to have had many different types of experiences throughout my life. If I don’t feel safe, my body shuts down, and I then, when I was younger, would internalize it as what’s wrong with me, and why can’t I be a certain way, and why am I not feeling a certain thing, and why is my body not reacting a certain way? Instead of going, oh, this isn’t a safe experience, for whatever reason, and I can’t actually there is no access to pleasure because the road to pleasure has been stolen by the head and the thoughts and the awareness of the experience. Instead of just being present in it. I can only be present in that type of intimacy if there is a ground of safety, and we’re not taught that it’s like, here’s a condom, here’s how it works. Have fun so much of it is still so oriented about, you know, sort of the male anatomy. And it’s not just for women like I think that if men knew what was possible, which, like young boys, just don’t, because there isn’t any education around it. If everyone knew what was possible, physically and emotionally and the beauty that can come from pleasure that’s like an emotional beauty, I think that people would be more interested to I kind of look at sexual energy as the serpent that’s like, goes through the and I’ve had, I have experiences with some very kind of traumatic things sexually. And so I think of it a lot as, like the serpent that sort of goes into people and uses our bodies energetically. And we’re sort of these zombies walking around going, I really want to connect, and I don’t know how, and I’m supposed to do this. I’m supposed to do this, I’m supposed to do that, and there’s all this awareness and Okay, now it’s done, and I’m going to shove that aside and compartmentalize and go back to my life. But then there’s still this energy running through us, and until we’re aware of that, I feel like it kind of runs us instead of us running it, and that’s something I would do in sex ed.

 

Samantha Bee  33:39

We’re all just looking for intimacy. There’s nothing better than true intimacy, which is not necessarily always, which is not like always sexual in nature. It’s like the intimacy of like a touch and a connection and eye contact and an understanding between two people. We’ll be right back after this.

 

Shailene Woodley  35:29

Do you think with intimacy? Because I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, like, what to me makes intimacy intimacy? And I I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just pure honesty. Like, if someone’s honest with me and they show me who they really are and how they really feel, whether it’s a negative or a positive thing. That’s intimate. What do you think?

 

36:07

Oh, it’s very intimate. And there’s also, you know, there’s something about the intimacy with a partner, like, I’ve been married for a long, long time, I don’t know, 23 years, or something like that, and there’s safety in it, and there’s something about there’s like a fluidity between myself and Jason, like we when one person is feeling strong, the they are supporting the other person. When one person is feeling weak, they look to the other partner, sometimes we’re at the same level of strength and weakness, and sometimes one of us needs more support, and then we fall back, and then the other one needs more support, and that creates a sense of total safety, because we can truly be we are Just like truly, openly ourselves. That doesn’t that doesn’t always look like like us caressing each other in the face every morning, but we’re always connecting. And we connect through laughter, like we connect because we think we we’re really each of us is we make each other laugh. It’s our best connection. It’s huge. It’s really huge. And so is huge. It’s huge. Like again, going back to what you said earlier, you have to have fun with your partner. You have to be having fun. Otherwise, what are we doing here? I know we can’t it. Can’t always be fighting and negotiating. If you’re not having fun, you’re not meant to be together. It’s time to, like […] have fun.

 

Shailene Woodley  37:47

Feel like so many people, is it settle or compromise? I’ve never been in a relationship longer than two years, and sometimes I look at myself and I’m like, am I scared of intimacy? And I don’t think that’s what it is. I think I just haven’t found the person that, yeah, you know, we do the 23 year thing together with. I have so many friends and people I respect who are in relationships where they’re like, well, you know, it’s this and this and this and this and this aren’t fulfilling, but there’s the kids and there’s the house and there’s the responsibilities and and I look at them and I’m like, You are so beautiful as a human being. Why are you doing this to each other? Because you’re you’re not bringing out the highest best. And it’s, I think, that’s also endemic in our culture, which is, like.

 

38:36

It is, you’re supposed to be additive, like a person should be additive to your life, you need to be additive to another person. And sometimes that that means you’re actually doing something that you don’t feel like doing today, like, I don’t know, doing the high intensity composting, yeah, whatever. But you know what I mean? But there’s a give and take. Like, everybody has to just, like, sometimes you’re just pitching in because it’s a team, but most of the time, you’re pitching in because you love each other and you’re like to building something together, but it’s about being additive, and I think, like, if a relationship subtracts too much from you, I don’t know, man, it’s going to be pretty hard to ride the crest of menopause to someone who who doesn’t have your back, that you’ll get into your 50s and be like, I don’t do this anymore. Now, I live for me. So like, you, you know you’re gonna end up going into these, like, big things together later in life, and if you’re really not balanced, it’s probably not going to work out, and that could be a very good thing. Sometimes it is better to have your cats. Listen, I can I tell you something. This is just such a sidetrack, but my son has a cat sitting job right now.

 

Shailene Woodley  39:53

Oh, my God.

 

Samantha Bee  39:55

Oh my god, he’s so cute. He’s 16. He has a cat sitting job. It’s adorable, and one of the cats. I swear to God. I swear to Jesus. Christ is a man trapped in a cat’s body. It’s like this cat. It’s like was turned into a cat by a witch’s curse. It’s like he has the face of a man and a cat. I wish I had a picture of his face. It’s just like, you’re like what?

 

Shailene Woodley  40:20

He was obsessed with cats, obsessed? I have two cats.

 

Samantha Bee  40:26

Oh, me too.

 

Shailene Woodley  40:27

Oh, they’re just,

 

Samantha Bee  40:29

My God.

 

Shailene Woodley  40:30

They make no, I’m like, bro, you were so chill, and now you just did seven cartwheels in a row, jumped eight and a half feet in the air, tapped the ceiling, ran around the room, and now you’re laying down again. What the fuck just went through your head? Explain what happened?

 

40:51

First of all, you have to send us pictures of your cats. I will send you a picture of I love cats so much that when like JD Vance is like, childless cat ladies. I’m like, childless cat like, bring me. I could easily live in a house with 40 cats.

 

Shailene Woodley  41:08

I know it’s funny every time I meet someone who’s not a cat person, I’m like, why are you not a cat person? I have a really, yeah, what’s wrong about my cats? But I was like, why are you not a cat person? And they’re like, well, they’re too moody. They run away, they don’t cuddle. And I’m like, my cats are the ultimate snugglers. They like, I wake up, one is here and one is here, and they’re just, oh yeah, they’re all up in me all the time. There’s nothing more sensual than a feline like these creatures know how to be in their bodies, and you’re not kidding. I also feel like they’re fierce protectors, like I.

 

41:40

Yes, they have emotional intelligence, they have discernment. They have choices. They make choices, and sometimes you don’t like their choices. You gotta live with it.

 

Shailene Woodley  41:52

I have a guy spend the night who I had just kind of like, you know, we were like, sort of casually dating, yeah, and he stayed the night of my house for the first time, and I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was like, my cat was like, rustling in the bed, and I and he’s not a cat person, and I was like, Is it okay if my sleep? And I reached over to collect my cat, and the bed was wet. And I was like, did this dude just like, oh, it’s the bed, my freaking cat, peed. Oh, my God. I mean, I was mortified, obviously, because I also didn’t really know this person. I picked my cat and I woke up, and I was like, I’m so sorry. My cat peed on the plank. It’s like, I have to change the comfort. Ah, and he was like, it’s fine. She was locked in. She didn’t have her like, what a nice man this man was, and he handled it with so much grace. But I woke up the next day and I was like. You were not quiet about your opinions on this dude.  You were you very discerning in that choice.

 

42:59

Strong opinions, strong. That’s a such a strong state. The cats never make a half statement.

 

Shailene Woodley  43:05

No and I love it. I’m like, they the going again, the performing thing. They do not perform. They just are. They’re like, this is how I feel, and it shall be known.

 

43:15

Okay, I want to talk just a bit about your um, because you’re so interested, so engaged with Well, I’m going to say activism on climate change, I have to say it, but like, you’re so you’re active. I mean, you’re just so active, and you have really focused your energy on the oceans, like, what draws you to the Okay? Because I saw hope in the water in which you do an episode about the changing California coast, and I learned so much. So can you describe? Why is it so important to promote eating less, less popular seafood? I don’t think people don’t really know that?

 

Shailene Woodley  43:56

Yeah, I didn’t know it. I knew it in theory, but I learned a lot to show. Um, when we it’s, it’s easy to be apathetic towards something that’s not in our face constantly. You know, I remember growing up, it was like, You’re not gonna, you’d see the billboards everywhere. You’re not gonna care about cancer until someone in your family gets cancer, and then you’re gonna care about cancer, and then you’re like, that was sort of the message I feel like I remember the most when I was a kid, and interestingly now, I feel like the message is like, you have to care about the Earth, and you’re not going to care about it until it’s on your front doorstep, which is true. And yet the sad thing is, once it’s on your front doorstep, it’s like on your front doorstep and the flow and the fires and the storms and the climate refugees, like it’s such a massive international issue that we’re contending with. And as far as the fish go over, fishing is massive. And I think people don’t I didn’t really realize like to be a fisherman in that way. Not just like talking about the oceans, because, to me, you can’t talk about the environment or the oceans without talking about humans, because we’re so intricately connected and intrinsically connected. And so many of these people who are on these commercial fishing boats going out to to fish the tuna and to and the salmon and all of these, these big they call them, like the big five, or whatever. A lot of these people are are trafficked. A lot of these people are told, like, where’s a job? We’re going to send all this money home to your family. Give us your passport. And then they never get their passports back, and then they’re stuck on these boats. And so it’s such a to me, like, yes, we should stop eating just these few species of fish because, or maybe reduce our desire to eat just those, because of the ramifications on the sea, but also because of the ramifications on humanity. And when you, when you start, when I started opening my eyes to like, oh, what would it be like to buy the oysters or the mussels or the clams, or this weird fish I’ve never heard of when I go to the butcher area or the fishmonger at the grocery store, it also like that is including a new cycle of sustainability that includes the emotional well being and physical well beings of humans as well, and or that we make lifestyle choices that encourage the financial, kind of capitalistic side of our food systems that’s going to influence the way that these systems affect communities around the world. And so it’s a really big conversation, and when I look at environmentalism in general, or conservation, it goes back to what we how we started this conversation, which is that we have one life man and I have a fierce like there’s like a mama bear in me that just wants to protect people and and remind people that this life can be beautiful. It doesn’t only have to be a life of suffering. It doesn’t only have to be a life of pain and the rat race of trying to survive and trying to make money just to pay the bills, just to, like, make sure your kids are okay. And the only way that’s going to change is if we all decide to be a little bit more uncomfortable and adjust our lifestyles a little bit, just a tiny bit, to include a broader perspective that can affect the rest of humanity. And it sounds maybe idealistic and and like a hippie thing to say, but it’s just true, and no one, I feel like very few people actually want to participate, because it it feels so large, but the small decision of choosing a different fish at a supermarket actually can make a difference.

 

47:44

It’s so misunderstood or just like not conceived of is just like our food systems. And also fashion, fashion is another, is a huge area in which we all really play a very deep part and can make change incrementally, definitely over time, but incrementally through with our pocketbook and the choices that we make like if we turn away from unsustainable eating, unsustainable shopping, unsustainable fashion choices, it could help. It could incite something. It could cause you to have a consciousness about things.

 

Shailene Woodley  48:27

Well, it’s just, it’s interesting to me. Like, I’ve thought a lot about why these systems are so strong, and we kind of live in this culture that says, like, don’t really, don’t think for yourself. Don’t have your own forget opinions. Like, definitely don’t have your own opinions, but don’t express yourself as a version of you. And if you’re gonna express yourself for who you are, the only way to do that is through fashion makeup, like it’s so physical. And that informs the choices that we make with fashion, with food, whatever, instead of valuing what is your How does your heart see the world and how does like, what makes you tick, what makes you feel alive? What is your light? Oh, my God, you’re pursuing your passions. I’m going to celebrate that. Because I’m not here to to be attached to you and need anything from you. I’m here to be devotional to you. I’m here to like, devote myself to your well being, but your well being should be like the way that you feel and the way that everything like when you walk into a room, what is the energy you’re bringing instead of what do you look like and what do you sound like? I think if we were able to shift importance from the identity of a physical perspective to the identity of like an emotional, mental, spiritual perspective. Man, I think all of those institutions, all these institutions that are really kind of plaguing our planet right now environmentally, would change very quickly.

 

49:56

If we all could just agree on a single genes. So. Louet for the rest of time, we had to save so much money, we would save so much water and so much so much stress, too much stress. Oh, my God, this was so it was so much fun talking to you. I adore people are gonna I adore talking to you. People are gonna love three women. I mean, like we’ve been waiting for this, so we are ready.

 

Shailene Woodley  50:25

I hope so. I just hope people see it. You know, to me, like three women is, oh, it is a show that that just sees us. I feel like it really sees us and right? And there is not one piece of the show that I think not everyone will find a point of relation to. For me, it’s very healing. So I wonder if it will be healing for others.

 

50:50

I love it. Well, thank you so much. This was so fun what a delight.

 

Shailene Woodley  50:54

So much fun.

 

Samantha Bee 51:00

That was Shailene Woodley, and I had no choice but to look up one thing she mentioned, the big five fish that make up the majority of the fish we eat. I could name the first few, but I had to check the rest. And it’s cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and shrimp. And yes, it is definitely important for us to start trying other fish to give the Big Five Time to repopulate. Thank you so much for joining us. I’m Samantha Bee, see you next week for some more Choice Words. Thank you for listening to Choice Words, which was created by and is hosted by me. The show is produced by […], with editing and additional producing by Josh Richmond. We are distributed by Lemonada Media, and you can find me @realsambee on Instagram and X, follow Choice Words wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.